Tulane University: Renaissance by Steve Giddens

© 2007 by The Booksmith Group All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by

an imprint of

2451 Atrium Way Nashville, TN 37214 1-800-358-0560 www.thebooksmithgroup.com ISBN (Standard): 978-0-9799011-9-5 ISBN (Premium): 978-1-934892-00-8 Publisher: Stephen D. Giddens Editorial Director: Mary Cummings Managing Editor: Jennifer Day Project Manager: Catherine Mayhew Communications Editor: Julee Hicks Text: Catherine Mayhew Book Design: Susan Browne Design Archival Photography from University Archives and Paula Burch-Celentano New Photography: Brian Gauvin Photo on p. 1, 12, 15, 22, 59, 87—Photo © 2007 The Times-Picayune Publishing Co., all rights reserved. Used with permission of The Times-Picayune. Photo on pg. 81—Photo by Mary Mouton Photo Katrina satellite images on p. 1, 7, 13, 15, 41, 59, 93—courtesy of MODIS Rapid Response Project at NASA/GSFC Printed in the United States of America First printing 2007

D e d I c a t I o n To the students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumni and friends of Tulane University who soldiered through adversity and brought a revered institution to a new level of greatness.

C o n t e n t s

F o r e w o r d Reason to Be Proud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii P r e f a c e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix I n t r o d u c t I o n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi C h a p t e r o n e Hello, Goodbye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

C h a p t e r T w o Water, Water Everywhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 C h a p t e r T h r e e A School Born of Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 C h a p t e r F o u r Make a List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 C h a p t e r F I v e Home Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 E P I L O G U E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

FOREWORD: R e a s o n

t o

b e

P r o u d

The clearest test of any institution is its resilience. Does it have the strength to recover from a crisis? Does it have the leadership, the wisdom, the character, the confidence and the belief in its mission to rebound from the unexpected? Are its roots deep enough and its faith in the future profound enough? By this measure, Tulane is a truly great institutionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;one of the greatest in this world. When the most devastating natural disaster in American history struck, Tulane not only endured, it prevailed. More than any other New Orleans institution, it led the way for the comeback not only of itself but of its beloved city. Its recovery came with a renewalâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a renewal of its vision and its sense of mission. That is why Tulane is now the right place for students and teachers with strong leadership skills and strength of character who relish being engaged in society. More than 87 percent of Tulane students returned after the storm, and it is now getting applications from students around the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;students who previously may not have considered Tulane.

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TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Led by Scott Cowen, Tulane has given new meaning to the overused phrase “silver lining.” The Board of Tulane developed a renewal plan that focused on undergraduate education and created a set of institutes that capitalize on the special opportunities in post-Katrina New Orleans. These include the Center for Public Service, the Partnership for the Transformation of Urban Communities, the Institute for the Study of Race and Poverty, the Scott S. Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives and the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College Institute. People who are lucky enough to be part of this process will tell their children and their children’s children what a great opportunity it was. And I suspect that even many generations from now, historians will be recounting the lessons of leadership and the examples of character that are destined to emerge from Tulane. So, to all of you whose hands are now holding this book, congratulations. You are being touched by one of the world’s great institutions in one of the world’s most magical places.

Walter Isaacson, a member of the Board of Tulane University, is the author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Einstein: His Life and Universe.

viii

P r e f a c e

All of us associated with Tulane University have talked a lot about survival since Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent New Orleans levee failures on August 29, 2005. While the experiences of survival and renewal have changed all of us in profound ways, it is easy as time passes to experience some blurring of details as life and activities propel us forward. Yet remembering is important not only to us as individuals but also to the life of Tulane University as an institution. This book is a chronicle of those memories, a physical representation of our survival from the storm and the unbroken line of our history from the time of our founding in a time of crisis in 1834. I hope you will cherish this book and display it proudly in your homes and offices as a symbol of pride in Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;its history, its perseverance and its future promise.

Scott S. Cowen, President

I n t r o d u c t I o n Few things are so human as our ability and need to share stories. It is in the telling that we begin to understand who and what we are, from where we have come and, perhaps, where we are going. The following pages are inspired by stories from the distant and not-sodistant past of Tulane Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;stories that wind through both calamity and triumph and stretch back to the earliest days of an institution that invented itself in the 19th century to deal with a public health crisis. There are stories of reinvention, tooâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;of the events that played out in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s landfall on the Gulf Coast and the choices made by Tulane administrators to save the institution. They say that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Yet, in turning over its stories about who we were and what we have done, the past reveals itself as an archive not only of calamity to be avoided but also triumph to be embraced and honored.

“ When I think of [what] all of you—in this great city I have loved all my life—have endured, I’m reminded of a phrase that Ernest Hemingway made famous: ‘Life breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.’” Bill Clinto n

Former PRESIDEN T to the 2 0 0 6 graduating class of T ulane

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

C h a p t e r O N E

Hello, Goodbye

Goodbye

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

New Orleans was enjoying a typical sweltering, humid

morning on August 27, 2005, as 1,600 new undergraduate students converged on the uptown campus of Tulane University for their new-student orientation.

It was a ritual played out yearly at the 171-year-old university, steeped in tradition but filled with the excitement of young men and women beginning what the university hoped would be the best years of their lives. The new Tulanians would learn not only about the flow of life at the prestigious university but also how to live in the larger world of New Orleans. The school and the Crescent City were as inextricably linked as the Spanish moss that draped the massive oak trees on the verdant campus.

Hello, Goodbye

Receptions, information sessions and sign-ups for student services—the schedule was dizzying. The student-run Tulane Emergency Medical Services staff was on hand with cold water and medical attention for anyone overcome by the heat as they walked from building to building and moved furniture into residence halls. The convocation and a picnic would cap off the busy day’s activities. In the past, Tulane’s convivial president, Scott Cowen, had provided guidance laced with humor in his speech to the entering class. He would remind them, for instance, that the “freshman fifteen,” those extra pounds new college students put on while away from the watchful eyes of their parents, would take on greater proportions in a food town such as New Orleans. He also would encourage the young men and women to say hello to the president as he walks on campus because he loves the attention.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

But there would also be serious advice: Don’t do anything that would upset your parents, obey the law, learn both in and out of the classroom and aspire to greatness. And enjoy every minute of every day because these times—here at Tulane and in one of the greatest cities on earth—would be the best of times. And he would tell them that the atmosphere, the culture, the spirit and love of Tulane would permeate the souls of these newest students. When graduates

speak of the Tulane “community,” they refer to the tight-knit group of alumni that literally span the globe but are never more than a heartbeat from their alma mater.

Hello, Goodbye

Scott Cowen would also reflect on some of Tulane’s recent milestones. Considered one of the most prestigious universities in America, Tulane has world-renowned programs in architecture, philosophy, political science and international development, as well as impressive graduate programs in law, medicine and business. Its maritime law course of study is acknowledged as one of the best in the world. On that sweltering day in August, the president would have pointed proudly to a new record in student enrollment, an increase in funded research and private giving and an expansion of Tulane’s service to the community—gains resulting from a strategic planning process called “A Renaissance of Thought and Action.”

The editors at Newsweek magazine had named Tulane one of the nation’s “hottest” universities, and they weren’t talking about the climate.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

But Cowen did not have the opportunity to tell his new charges any of those things. Instead, as he recalls, he â&#x20AC;&#x153;pretty much told them hello and then told them goodbye.â&#x20AC;?

Hello, Goodbye

TropIcal DepressIon Twelve Several days before orientation, Tulane administrators had begun carefully watching an approaching storm in the Gulf of Mexico. Starting as Tropical Depression 12 near the Bahamas on August 23, and strengthening to a tropical storm the next day, Katrina blew across Florida into the Gulf and was now gathering strength. If Tulane had to evacuate, it wouldn’t be the first time. A year earlier, Hurricane Ivan had closed the university for several days. In a tropical city such as New Orleans, hurricanes were common, but evacuations generally lasted only a few days, and many

One handscrawled sign on a boarded-up business set the tone during Ivan: “We don’t run from hurricanes: we drink them.” natives stayed to ride out the storm.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

But Anne Baños had a bad feeling about Katrina. A longtime New Orleans resident, Tulane’s chief of staff had been watching the storm build strength in the Gulf, and she didn’t like the enlarging swirl of angry clouds that the satellite photos revealed. The walls of President Cowen’s office, next door to Baños’ own office in Gibson Hall, were lined with framed prints of old architectural drawings of the university. It was common to remove them to store in a central area before a storm, and that Friday, she decided to take them down. When Cowen returned from a meeting later that day, he was amused that she’d removed the prints and told Baños she was being ridiculous. Fine, she thought to herself. If I’m being

ridiculous, I’ll just hang them up again on Sunday.

leave New 8

Hello, Goodbye

By the next day, Cowen realized the full potential of Katrina. The administration quickly assembled a flyer to hand out on campus, telling students to meet at McAlister Auditorium at 1 p.m. Wearing a pair of khaki Bermuda shorts and with microphone in hand, the president stood on the stage and told those assembled that the university would close until September 1 and that students needed to make

He advised them either to leave with their parents, seek shelter with friends or relatives or contact university officials if they had no way to evacuate on their own. plans to leave New Orleans at once.

Orlea 9

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Suddenly, what had been a day of joyous anticipation turned somber. Many students had never been away from home, and with their parents now gone, they turned to Tulane officials for help. Senior Vice President for External Affairs and future Chief Operating Officer Yvette Jones became den mother to 650 students, including the football team and 150 first-year students, who would evacuate by charter buses to Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi. While some of the entering students were terrified, upperclassmen on campus took the evacuation in stride.

Hello, Goodbye

Amelia Decker was a junior majoring in neuroscience and a member of the Tulane Emergency Medical Services. While students were being shuttled onto charter buses, she met friends at Fresco, a casual Italian restaurant near campus, and then went back to her basement apartment to pack a few necessities. As director of personnel for the ambulance service, she would drive one of the two TEMS ambulances to Jackson. After moving some of her possessions to an upper floor in her building, she packed a bag with a pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, her TEMS uniform and 25 DVDs. She knew the drillâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;drive to Jackson, sit around for a couple of days watching movies and then head back to Tulane. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d been there, done that.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Decker was one of the last to evacuate the city on Sunday morning. She noticed as she drove the TEMS ambulance north that both sides of Interstate 55 had been designated as one-way heading away from New Orleans, part of the contra-flow lanereversal program. The

Tulane uptown campus, just 24 hours ago a hub of youthful activity, now lay silent. The only people left on campus were those designated by the Tulane emergency planâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;facilities staff that would be charged with the initial cleanup after Katrina blew through, senior administration officials and President Cowen.

Hello, Goodbye

As one of the buildings on campus designed to withstand hurricane-force winds, the Reily Student Recreation Center was set up as the command post. Facilities workers set up a radio and a computer station and brought in enough food and water for several days. They also loaded a truck with chainsaws, plywood and other materials they would need for the cleanup and drove it to higher ground in Lafayette, Louisiana, about two hours away. Senior administrators worked out of the Lagniappe Room at Reily. (The term

lagniappe is peculiar to New Orleans culture and means a bonus, a little something extra.)

Cowen and his team would soon find out that Katrina had a little something extra in store for Tulane University. 13

“[Tulane is an] extraordinary university in a very special city, not just in the state but in the world.” Jude Law

AC TOR AT T HE PREMIERE OF A LL T H E K I NG ’S M E N AT T UL A N E

C h a p t e r T W O

Water, Water Everywhere

Water, Wate

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Deborah Grant, Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vice president for university

communications, breathed a sigh of relief as she and Scott Cowen toured the uptown campus Tuesday morning. After the hurricane made landfall, they had spent a harrowing Monday at Reily as Katrina battered the

building. As the storm picked up speed, the recreation centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s roof began to clatter violently and administrators decided not to get too close to the center of the building because they feared they would get sucked through the roof. In retrospect, they knew that fear was silly, but such was the awesome power of Katrina. 16

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

As Grant drove a golf cart around campus the next day, Cowen would jump off to move downed tree limbs from their path. Carpenter Tracy Boudreaux and other facilities staff were on their way back from Lafayette with the cleanup equipment, and Grant thought that with repair work, school could reopen in a few weeks.

Looking back, she now remembers the “uh-oh” moment when she realized that her world was about to change forever. Tuesday had dawned bright and sunny with the vivid blue sky so common after a major hurricane, and Grant decided to borrow a bicycle and pedal from Reily to her home several miles away. When she crossed Willow Street, she waded through knee-high water but thought little of it. After all, the third strongest hurricane to hit the United States in history had roared right through her city. An hour later, she pedaled back to Reily, the handlebars of her bicycle weighed down with bags of clothing from home. As she recrossed Willow Street,

she was shocked to discover the water was now waist-high. She looked up and rechecked the vivid blue sky. That water wasn’t from the storm. It was coming from somewhere else. 17

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Grant hurried back to Reily to share the worrisome news with the administrative team on campus— Cowen, Chief Financial Officer Tony Lorino and Director of Public Safety Ken Dupaquier. Although a satellite phone was part of the emergency equipment, it wasn’t reliable, and cell phone service was all but inoperable. The

team on campus had no idea they were about to be stranded; they were completely unaware of the horrifying images washing across the airwaves of every television news channel throughout the world. Cowen and Grant learned the truth when they drove the golf cart to Cowen’s home next to the Tulane campus, where they

The levees had broken, they were told. Canal Street bordering the French Quarter was under nine feet of water and the deluge was coming toward Tulane. encountered several neighbors.

coming toward Tulane 18

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

The M e n a c I n g S e a Boudreaux and Juan Perez, a vehicle mechanic, had just pulled into the maintenance shop at Tulane on Tuesday afternoon from Lafayette when they, too, noticed the water. A fish swam into

the shop, an occurrence that would have been ludicrously funny under any other circumstance. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t

long before the water was washing inside the truck as Boudreaux and Perez made their escape. Monday and Tuesday, Reily had power due to the diligence of Electrical Superintendent Bob Voltz and electrician Brian Oubre, who camped out at the universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s power plant monitoring the on-campus electrical generator and the rising water. Voltz devised a novel way to determine how quickly the tide was coming in. He blew up a latex glove and tied it to a catwalk with string near the high-voltage box. He would watch the bobbing glove rise ever higher until it finally came within reach of the box.

Wednesday morning, he shut the power off as the water overtook the electrical system.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

First light on Wednesday revealed an eerie tableau on the campus. Where there had been athletic fields, sidewalks and wooden benches where students could study in the fresh air, there was now only water. Black, oil-slicked water. Cowen and Grant sat on the steps of Reily and just stared at this new menacing sea surrounding them as far as they could see. Cowen realized at that moment that the university was in trouble. There would be tremendous damage to the campus. And he still had little notion of the devastation to the rest of the city and to the downtown campus and other Tulane facilities. Although the Tulane team had confidence in their emergency plan, nothing could have prepared them for thisâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;stranded, out of communication and running low on food and water.

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

If you ask the members of the facilities staff what role they played in the escape of those shipwrecked on that urban island

But the Tulane administrators trapped on campus will say without hesitation that the carpenters, electricians and mechanics are heroes. Even with the supplies they of brick, they will modestly refrain from comment.

had stashed away in Lafayette, the facilities crew was faced with a brave new world that didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t include electricity or mobility. As the water began to rise on Tuesday, Tony Lorino noticed two kayaks and a decrepit, old motorboat that had been stored under the Reily Center. The crew pulled them out and brought them to a dry spot, thinking they might come in handy. That motorboat would, in fact, be the lifeline to the outside world.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

The boat had a hole in it, no steering wheel and a motor in pieces. Boudreaux was known as a guy who could fix anything, and he fashioned a steering wheel, fixed the engine and patched the hole so the boat was functional. He siphoned gas out of cars on a nearby parking deck for fuel. With the boat, the team could maneuver from Reily to dry land, where they could use the golf cart and a dump truck to survey the rest of campus. They found 80 percent of it under water.

The Tulane team soon realized they would have to depend on themselves for survival. The New Orleans Police Department was nowhere to be found and the military had stopped only briefly to attempt to commandeer the dump truck. Boudreaux told the soldiers if they could hot-wire the truck, they could have it. Tulane kept the truck.

survival 22

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

Food and water turned out not to be a problem. Although the Tulane teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s initial supply was running low, there was an entire campus to plunder. Since the fall term was just beginning, all of the campus cafeterias were stocked with food. Everyone, including Cowen, fanned out and broke into any building that might have food or water. Among their prize discoveries were smoked salmon, strawberry cheesecake and a mystery cooler they floated through the fetid water from Bruff Commons. When they opened the container, they found boxes of the frozen ice cream treat called Dippinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Dots. To their delight, they discovered the pink and blue dots floated individually in the water, creating a temporary rainbow of color. Boudreaux had also brought his barbecue smoker and bags of charcoal from home. He set it up on the deck at the recreation center and smoked some hams. Let the good times roll. It was almost like Mardi Gras.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

After the electricity failed, Reily became a virtual hothouse, too stifling for sleeping at night. The staff moved up to the roof, dragging lounge chairs they’d taken from the swimming pool area. It was a fitful slumber as military helicopters spied what they thought were refugees on the roof and dropped ready-to-eat meals while the “refugees” below grabbed for their pillows so they wouldn’t

Several maintenance staffers stayed awake through the night, watching for the looters they feared would find the campus. blow away.

The campus remained safe from looters, but not from unwelcome visitors. Tulane sits in the midst of an upscale residential area and is next door to one of the city’s most prestigious addresses—the gated community known as Audubon Place. The mansions on Audubon were built between 1894 and 1927 and are home to New Orleans’ most prosperous citizens.

a 24

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

One night, a helicopter landed on top of the parking garage across from the Reily Center. Boudreaux watched suspiciously from the roof as the chopper flew off, leaving a cadre of heavily armed men staring back at him. Wearing bulletproof vests and carrying M16 assault rifles, the men were mercenaries from a private military company who had been hired to guard the homes on Audubon. They yelled over at Boudreaux, demanding supplies including the coveted motorboat. These people are not from around here, Boudreaux thought. He considered the assault rifles for a moment, remembering the consid-

Then he hollered back that the boat was not available, but they could borrow a kayak if they waded to Reily in the chest-deep water with their hands over their heads and produced a driverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s license as a deposit on the vesselâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s safe return. The men with the M16s complied. erably smaller firearm he kept by his side.

armed men staring back 25

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

H o u st o n , We Ha v e a P ro b l em While Scott Cowen sat on the steps at Reily wondering how in the world he and his colleagues were going to get out of New Orleans, Anne Baños was 350 miles away in Houston, Texas, trying to figure out the very same thing. Baños had evacuated to Houston on Sunday with her husband, her daughter and two golden retrievers—one belonging to Cowen. She had been watching the horrors of the disaster unfold on national television, images about which Cowen hadn’t a clue. Tuesday afternoon, as water rushed into New Orleans, Baños started calling helicopter companies.

Looking back, she recalled the ludicrousness of her search. She had no money other than a personal credit card. The price tag every time a chopper left the ground was $40,000. She had no way to assure the helicopter companies of payment other than to say, “I’m Anne Baños from Tulane University, and if you need to verify my identity, you can call the hotel where I’m registered.” The

companies acted on faith. By the end of the day on Tuesday, she was in line for several helicopters. Baños had been in limited contact with Cowen by cell phone, but by Tuesday evening she’d lost all connectivity. She had to tell the choppers where to land on the Tulane campus, and she chose the football practice field behind Reily. It was a large and recognizable target. There was no way she could have known that it was now under seven feet of water, making identification—much less a landing—impossible. Anne Baños was acquiring a lot of new skills in her role as rescuer. Wednesday morning, she contacted authorities at a military base in Omaha to get air clearance for the helicopter. Only medical doctors were being allowed air rescue, she was told, so for a brief moment in time, Scott Cowen got his medical license.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

The first helicopter went airborne at 11 a.m. Wednesday. Baños text-messaged Cowen to tell him that help was on the way, but the pilot—unfamiliar with New Orleans and the coordinates that were now under water—landed on top of Memorial Hospital a few miles away and was commandeered for several hours to deliver supplies to the patients and medical staff stranded inside. A second helicopter failed to materialize. A third chopper went up around 5 p.m. Wednesday, but as the light faded, it turned back and promised to try again early Thursday morning. Baños stood in her hotel room in Houston gazing out of the window and watching the sun as it set. She started to cry. She knew no one that night would find her friends in the dark, dangerous place New Orleans had become.

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

“X” M a r k s t h e S p o t The facilities staff was determined that Cowen, Grant and the other administrators would get out of New Orleans Thursday morning. They would set up a landing strip on the levee at Audubon Park, across the street from Tulane, that was so audaciously obvious that any helicopter could find it.

Tracy Boudreaux had just finished his nightly ritual of wiping the diesel fuel from his body with water and bleach when he learned he would have to set up the landing site. At two in the morning, he waded once again into the murky water surrounding Reily and made his way to dry land, an oil ring of diesel fuel around his chest. He crossed the Audubon Park golf course to the levee, carrying two large banners that had been strung from the trees on the Tulane campus for new-student orientation. He unfurled them and made a giant “X” where the helicopter should land.

stunne

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

Cowen, Grant, Lorino and Dupaquier rose before dawn on Thursday and made their way by motorboat to the golf cart and then to the dump truck. Tired and dirty, the president of Tulane University took a bumpy ride across the Audubon Park golf course. Just shy of the landing spot, the group noticed for the first time a large chain-link fence that stood between them and escape. Without a thought, Cowen gave the order to plow down the fence. Finally, at 7 a.m. Thursday, the helicopter that would take them to freedom arrived. It would hold only two people plus

Cowen and Grant were the first to leave. Cowen remembers gazing at the devastation in New Orleans by air and being stunned. the pilot.

He also recalls the surreal quality of his rescue. When the helicopter landed in Patterson, Louisiana, the airport manager’s wife loaned him her car, and he and Grant headed to Shoney’s breakfast bar. Then the disheveled pair got on a private plane sent to Patterson by a Tulane board member and headed to Houston. As Cowen settled on the plane, he took out a crumpled Shoney’s napkin and used it to write his first message to the Tulane community. Within hours of arriving in Houston, the message would appear on an emergency Tulane website which Cowen hoped would reassure the faculty, staff and students that Tulane would be back in business—a bold promise he did not entirely believe at the time.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

E me r ge n cy E d uca tI o n In the days immediately following the hurricane, the future of Tulane students scattered across the country was unclear. But in New Orleans a small part of Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s student body was functioning at warp speed. The Tulane Emergency Medical Services became one of hundreds of medical units to help evacuate those in need of medical attention from New Orleans. Established in 1981, TEMS has two ambulances that respond to emergencies on the Tulane uptown campus and in the surrounding area. All its members are certified emergency medical technicians and many pursue medical degrees after graduation. What

they would see in the days that they were mobilized after Katrina would change their lives forever.

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

In the days after the hurricane, TEMS members headed first to Jackson State University to attend to evacuated students and then to Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, where a temporary medical facility had been created at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, (better known to LSU students as the P-MAC).

The 800-bed facility was the largest acute-care field hospital created in United Statesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; history. Kimo Carvalho, a cellular and molecular biology major from Honolulu, Hawaii, felt anxiety wash over him as he entered the P-MAC. Hospital beds lined

He had just entered his sophomore year and on the way to Baton Rouge had been reviewing the TEMS protocols for managing a disaster. None of them fit the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. the arena floor under a giant electronic scoreboard.

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

Suddenly, Carvalho and his TEMS teammates were just another emergency response team, not students from a decimated university. As hurricane victims in need of medical attention arrived by the busloads from New Orleans, they worked twelve- to fourteen-hour shifts in the ambulances, transporting patients from the P-MAC to area hospitals. Since none of the Tulane students were familiar with Baton Rouge, they wrote directions to the various hospitals on latex gloves and laid them out on the front seats of the ambulances. The victims ranged from young to old. Ambulance driver Amelia Decker remembers the first person she treated was a Tulane student who had been in a history class with her the previous semester. Carvalho transported an elderly woman whose vital signs deteriorated to the point that he couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel a pulse. When they arrived at the hospital, the patient was quickly wheeled into an operating room. After their ambulance shifts ended, the TEMS members would head back to the P-MAC to help assess the medical conditions of other victims just arriving. TEMS members were among the first emergency responders to reenter the city of New Orleans. They were sent to the airport to pick up patients that were being housed in the baggage-claim area. Carvalho remembers the surreal scene when he arrived. Ambulance after ambulance was lined up at the entrance to baggage claim, but none of the crews were transporting patients. They were waiting for someone to give them orders, but no one of authority was there. The TEMS team took the lead and headed for baggage claim. Carvalho was thunderstruck by what he sawâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;hundreds of injured people without medication lay on field stretchers as far as Carvalho could see. An aid worker asked them to take the two most seriously injured people to Baton Rouge; one of the patients had been in the middle of a hip replacement operation when Katrina struck.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

It was a sobering experience. These young TEMS men and women—who not a week before had been preparing to administer bottles of cold water to overheated parents—were now in the middle of the largest natural disaster in United States history. No protocol, indeed. They had to make it up as they went. The TEMS team gave medical attention to the victims of Katrina for 40 days. They would have remained on the job, but school administrators deactivated the unit because they feared the students were mentally and physically exhausted. Each team member felt that the experience had changed his or her outlook. They listened not only to the victims’ stories of medical need but also to stories about loved ones missing and lives destroyed. Many of the emergency responders would break down and cry quietly, overwhelmed with the pain and suffering. When Carvalho returned to Tulane the following January, he would see the water lines on the buildings around campus where the flooding had occurred and it would trigger traumatic memories. He couldn’t concentrate on his studies for the first few months. His entire circle of friends changed from the carefree buddies of his freshman year to his TEMS teammates, now mature beyond their years. For Amelia Decker, the experience resulted in an intense love for and pride in Tulane and the city of New Orleans. She recalls thinking that after the storm struck, Tulane students had become part of the larger community. It is a story she will tell her grandchildren: “Your grandma was in the hurricane, and she was scared out of her mind.”

Medica l M ira cles Jim Montgomery did not know why the water kept rising around the Tulane University Hospital and Clinic in the days following Katrina, but the president and chief executive officer of the hospital was smart enough to know one thing: it was not a good sign for a facility that depended on electricity for the well-being of its patients. Although the hospital eventually did lose power and temperatures soared into the 90s inside the dark building, all of the patients and staff were evacuated safely by helicopter. On Valentineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Day 2006, Tulane was the first hospital to reopen in downtown New Orleans after more than $90 million in repairs. For the medical students who trained at the hospital, the road back home was not so swift. After the storm, administrators of the Tulane University School of Medicine faced the daunting challenge of locating their students scattered across the country and setting up a medical school at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in just three weeks. They were determined that no students would lose critical time in their coursework and that fourth-year students would graduate on time.

It would be almost a year before the students returned to New Orleans. Some viewed their

Baylor donated working space and office

experience as a year-abroad program. Others

equipment for Tulane faculty and staff. Medical

counted the days until their return to the Big Easy.

students found housing through the generosity

But the School of Medicine accomplished

of the Baylor community. Red beans and rice

its goals: no time was lost in educating the

were replaced by pintos and brisket, but the

young doctors-to-be and all of the fourth-year

students adapted.

students graduated on time.

Opportunities Lost Dr. Gerald Berenson, principal investigator for the

One source of potential disaster was averted.

Bogalusa Heart Study, had experienced enough

Medical teams were able to break into the univer-

hurricanes in New Orleans to be comfortable

sity’s “hot labs” to destroy some of the world’s

riding out Katrina with his wife at home. But after

most dangerous germs used for research.

three days, he was relieved to see sheriff’s deputies in aluminum flatboats from Baton Rouge sent by his nephew to rescue him. Some of the groundbreaking research from

As if in step with the university’s founders who

Bogalusa, the world’s oldest racial study of risk

cared for a city under a crisis, and despite

factors for heart disease in children and young

significant flood damage to the Tulane Univer-

adults, was lost when

sity Health Sciences Center, Tulane physicians

frozen urine and blood

performed courageous clinical care immedi-

samples collected since

ately after Katrina. For the month following

1973 thawed out.

the storm, Tulane doctors, medical residents

Fortunately, Berenson had

already

analyzed

much of the data and

and students provided free health care for the people of New Orleans in the absence of any formal infrastructure.

saved it on his computer.

Karen DeSalvo, chief of general internal

Other researchers were not so lucky.

medicine and geriatrics who holds the C. Thorpe

Research on cancer, AIDS, heart disease and

Ray Chair in Internal Medicine at Tulane, was

other ailments was lost. More than 150 projects

a leader among the providers as they worked

at Tulane were affected.

under awnings, in police precincts, in tents and

In the days following the flooding, stories of heroism extended to the physicians involved in

Without Hesitation, Care in Health Crisis

in parking lots, ultimately collaborating with nonprofit partners in the community.

some of those studies. Tulane cancer specialist

Partnerships forged in the aftermath of

Dr. Tyler Curiel rode out the storm and spent the

the storm made the several sites and mobile

first few days after the hurricane transferring

units possible. Within the year after Hurricane

vials from failing freezers to liquid nitrogen tanks,

Katrina, the Tulane Community Health Center

using a flashlight to see. Researchers rescued

at Covenant House provided free care for

hundreds of animals and took them 38 miles

more than 7,800 patients. What was started

north to the Tulane National Primate Research

by DeSalvo and others as a source of basic

Center, which escaped major damage.

care, such as tetanus shots for residents of

the French Quarter, had expanded into adult

post-Katrina construction work in New Orleans.

primary care, mental health counseling, geriat-

Several Tulane medical students who relo-

ric care and health education for the adjacent

cated to Houston for the academic year after

downtown neighborhoods.

the hurricane decided they wanted to find addi-

Tulane once again proved a leader in

tional ways to meet the health care needs of the

providing health care for the region’s residents

New Orleans community. So they created the

and newcomers.

Fleur de Vie clinic in response to the decrease

The Latino Health Outreach Project, a grass-

of available, affordable health care in the region

roots effort following Katrina, provided free

after Katrina. While in Houston, the students

health care for up to 50 people each day. The

came up with the name Fleur de Vie—a play on

clinic was the brainchild of Catherine Jones, a

fleur de lis, the eternal symbol of New Orleans.

third-year student in Tulane’s combined medical

(Vie means “life” in French.)

and master of public health degree program. A

Medical, public health and social work

native of New Orleans who grew up speaking

students worked with attending and resident

“Spanglish” at home, Jones had evacuated

doctors to provide primary care, social work,

to Texas with her family before Katrina. Hear-

mental health, diabetes counseling and Spanish

ing the distressing news out of her hometown,

translation at no cost to underserved patients.

Jones returned to New Orleans after eight days

Initially, many of the students who worked at

to be of help. The project not only filled a void

the clinic were displaced from their homes after

of the eroded health care system, it also helped

Katrina. Despite this, they would contribute to

in the city’s rebuilding by caring for the large

the community and work toward rebuilding a

number of Spanish-speaking workers drawn to

better health care system.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

“ You’re amazing people. You’re a very famous graduating class to go through what you’ve gone through.” E lle n D e Gen e re s

C omedia n a n d N ew O r l e a n s n at i ve to the 2 0 0 6 g ra duat i n g c l a s s o f T ul a n e

C h a p t e r THREE

Born of Disa A School Born of DIsaster

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Tulane is no stranger to catastrophic weather. Were it not for a shipwreck on the aptly-named Folly Island near Charleston, South Carolina, in 1832, the Medical College of Louisiana—the precursor of Tulane—might never have been founded. Many of the survivors were suffering from the advanced stages of cholera, and a young physician, Dr. Thomas Hunt of Charleston, tended to the patients on the quarantined island. That experience convinced Hunt that there was great need for a medical school that would specialize in the treatment of tropical diseases. He turned his sights toward epidemic-ridden New Orleans. The Big Easy was at once a city of both refinement and debauchery. The city’s wealthy women imported fine gowns from Paris and attended the opera on the arms of gentlemen who talked politics and philosophy over lavish dinner parties in stately mansions. The city’s less-savory citizens took advantage of bawdy women and what the local black musicians called “happy music,” better known as jazz. The sultry night air in the Vieux Carre resonated with sounds of horses clomping on the cobblestone streets past smoky, gaslit bars where longshoremen spent their money gambling. The pulse of voodoo drums beat a mysterious melody on Congo Square.

A School Born of DIsaster

But New Orleans was also known as the “necropolis of the South” because of the deadly cholera and yellow fever epidemics that periodically swept through the city. Hunt and six other doctors committed to bringing medical relief to the region founded the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 with few resources. In the beginning, entrance requirements were not stringent. Any young man of good moral fiber could gain entrance for $150 in annual tuition. Volunteer physicians taught the classes and medical students did their clinical work at the city’s Charity Hospital. On April 5, 1836, the first 11 medical students received their degrees. As the medical school grew, it became part of the newly established public University of Louisiana in 1847. That same year, a law school was established—the first institution in the Southwest to teach civil law. A general academic wing was added in 1850. While the medical school flourished, both the law school and academic programs floundered. Although most of the students were from New Orleans, residents did not support the institution financially.

A School Born of DIsaster

In 1861, the Civil War shuttered the doors of the university for four years. After the war ended, the medical school resumed instruction in November of 1865. The law school reopened a week later. The academic department did not survive. By the 1870s, it was clear that the South needed an educational system that would contribute to economic redevelopment after the Civil War. The South needed buildings, railroads and factories, and it had to develop students who would become professionals in architecture, engineering and construction. In the spring of 1884, the University of Louisiana graduated its last class. The university was poor, but it was about to get a transfusion from a Northern philanthropist who would pour money into the educational system of his adopted home. After the Civil War, as the South struggled through Reconstruction, several Northern philanthropists looked to provide assistance to the decimated region. George Peabody gave money to establish the George Peabody College for Teachers from what was previously the University of Nashville in Tennessee. Cornelius â&#x20AC;&#x153;Commodoreâ&#x20AC;? Vanderbilt donated a large sum of money to turn Central University into Vanderbilt University, also in Nashville. And Paul Tulane endowed a weak University of Louisiana, which would become the Tulane University of Louisiana. Paul Tulane had grown up in Princeton, New Jersey, but fell in love with New Orleans when he toured the South with a relative. He remembered a time in his youth when he had watched young men get off a steamboat in Paducah, Kentucky, from New Orleans to begin their overland journey to attend college. He wondered why there was not such a school in their hometown.

Civil War shut the doors 45

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Tulane opened a business and invested in land in New Orleans. Toward the end of his life, he decided he wanted to make a lasting gift to his adopted hometown and started donating sums of money to bolster the flagging University of Louisiana. In total, Paul Tulane donated more than $1 million to the university. Tulane’s first president, William Preston Johnston, laid out a mission for Tulane that was strikingly similar to the university’s mission today: a well-rounded undergraduate education, a community-oriented program of adult education and the development of knowledge through research. Tulane grew rapidly through the remainder of the 19th century and into the 20th. The university soon outgrew its first campus downtown on Common Street and purchased land that had once been a thriving sugar plantation. In 1894, the cornerstone was laid for Tulane’s first building at its present campus.

It was named after Senator Randall Lee Gibson, who had been instrumental in persuading Tulane to donate the school’s endowment.

A School Born of DIsaster

H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College was founded in 1886 by Josephine Louise Newcomb in honor of her daughter, Harriott Sophie. Newcomb was the first degree-granting coordinate college for women established within the framework of a major university for men. In 1927, a department was created within Sophie Newcomb that would come to define the very heart and soul of Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

The school would cement the unbreakable link between the private university and the New Orleans public it served. the School of Social Work.

Then, as now, Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mission was to improve the community in which it thrived. The doctors who graduated from the medical school brought more sanitary conditions to New Orleans, improving the health of its citizens. Graduates from the College of Technology, created in 1894, brought electricity to the city. Sophie Newcomb artists created pottery out of local clay that would become world-famous. For many years, most students at Tulane and Newcomb were the sons and daughters of local citizens, and after graduation, they remained to serve the city they loved.

A School Born of DIsaster

For many years, Tulane suffered from sporadic fund-raising and a dependency on tuition fees to remain viable. From 1893 to 1910 the university operated at a loss for all but three years. In 1920, realizing that the school needed sounder financial footing, Tulane held its first endowment drive. Between 1918 and 1930, the endowment increased from $3,405,000 to $9,984,000, and total university assets grew from $6,895,000 to $17,886,000. One significant bequest came at the end of a bizarre incident. William Ratcliff Irby was a successful New Orleans businessman and a member of the Tulane Board of Administrators. It was well known that he had suffered from a heart ailment for years. On the morning of November 20, 1926, he took a taxi to an undertaker and told him he was looking for a casket for an ailing friend. After selecting one, he asked the undertaker if he would go downstairs and retrieve a copy of the daily newspaper. While the undertaker was gone, Mr. Irby pulled out a revolver and shot himself in the head, having selected a casket not for a friend but for himself. He left $2 million in his will to Tulane. Despite intermittent success over the years in fund-raising, it became clear to Tulane administrators that a more formal approach had to be devised. In 1953, the Division of Development was created to devote full-time attention to increasing funding through annual giving, large individual gifts and planned giving through wills and trusts. The 1940s and 1950s brought further growth as Tulane established a firstrate graduate-degree program. Tulane also created the University College for evening and adult education for the New Orleans community as well as the School of Architecture, which would play a major role in Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mission of community involvement in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine was founded in 1967 and is the oldest school of its type in the United States. Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reputation as a premier research institution was cemented when it was elected to join the Association of American Universities, an organization of leading research universities. Tulane is one of 62 members in the United States and Canada. 49

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

T h e O l I ve a nd B l u e Although track was the first official sport at Tulane, with the inaugural team fielded in 1887, football has been king for most of the university’s history. The first football teams were loosely organized without official uniforms and unencumbered by protective helmets and padding. Football came to Tulane via students from the Northeast who had either played it or watched a game. The first official game was played in 1893 between Louisiana State University and Tulane. In 1900, the team—then known as “The Olive and Blue” for its uniform colors or as “The Greenies”—completed a perfect season. In 1920, the team got its official nickname, “The Green Wave,” from a song titled “The Rolling Green Wave” that was published in Tulane’s student newspaper. As interest and the popularity of the sport grew, faculty members became upset that the university was continuously supplying entertainment to crowds completely uninterested in higher education. The faculty also objected to its cost, since precious dollars were going toward one athletic program instead of the general physical education of all of Tulane’s students. But the floodgates of football opened largely because it brought the most money to the athletic department. Between 1920 and 1940, Tulane played in two Sugar Bowls and one Rose Bowl. The team was conference champion or cochampion six times.

A School Born of DIsaster

Tulane’s stadium was the original site of the Sugar Bowl and was also the original home of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints. In 1974, the Superdome in downtown New Orleans was completed and both the Saints and the Green Wave moved into the new facility the following year. Tulane’s original stadium was later demolished.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

In 1932, Tulane became a charter member of the Southeastern Conference. Although the football team enjoyed early success, as larger land-grant universities became football superpowers, Tulane lagged behind and left the SEC in 1966. Tulane now enjoys an affiliation with Conference USA, whose members not only strive for athletic achievement but also for academic excellence. If football is king, baseball is the crown prince. Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s baseball team is consistently ranked among the best in the nation and enjoys a fervent following by both students and faculty. In 2001, the team set a school and national record for winning 55 games. Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s team started the 2005 season ranked first in the nation and held that ranking throughout the regular season, which ended with a trip to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.

Colleges and universities have always struggled to balance the rigors of academia with the popularity of sports. Tulane has been no exception. In 2003, the university began a comprehensive review of athletics and how they related to the mission of the university. As a result, the school made a goal that its athletes would be models for the nation in terms of academic performance and graduation rates.

A School Born of DIsaster

H . So p h I e N e wco m b The founding of one of the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most elite womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s colleges was born of unspeakable heartbreak at the death of a child. Harriott Sophie Newcomb was just 15 years old when she died of diphtheria in 1870. Her mother, Josephine Louise Newcomb, wanted a lasting memorial to her daughter and found it in the creation of the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in 1886.

A School Born of DIsaster

Josephine Newcomb was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but spent her youth in New Orleans. She would return again and again to visit the city, and after her daughter’s death, she chose her adopted hometown for a women’s college. She selected the Tulane Board of Administrators to oversee what became the first women’s coordinate college in the nation. Similar agreements would bind Harvard University with Radcliffe College, and Columbia University with Barnard College. The coordinate college plan provided for a separate president and faculty so that the courses of study at Newcomb and Tulane would remain separate and distinct. On the occasion of Newcomb’s first graduation, Tulane President William Preston Johnston showered the young women with glowing praise: “You are the firstlings of our flock,” he told them. “But I prefer to think of you as the rare primroses in the springtime of its college existence, the first flowers of its morning.”

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Newcomb’s original building was a two-story brownstone house at the corner of Howard and Camp Streets. It was an unfortunate location—dusty and noisy with the unwanted intrusion of men loitering around the property watching the Newcomb girls do calisthenics in the yard. In 1890, the campus moved to an ornate Italianate villa on Washington Avenue. Its third and last move was to the present campus on Broadway in 1917. Josephine Newcomb funded various improvements to the campus during her lifetime, and upon her death in 1901, her estate of $2,668,307 went to the college. The students of Newcomb possessed an almost mystical sense of destiny and pride. “Newcomb was a college within the framework of Tulane, but that was all,” wrote John P. Dyer in Tulane, The

“Neither faculty nor students felt themselves to be a part of the whole. They were Newcomb people.”

Biography of a University.

Newcomb offered a broad liberal arts education but became particularly noted in two departments. Clara Baer, the first chair of Newcomb’s physical education department, was an early national expert on physical health and published Basket-

ball Rules for Women and Girls, which described basketball shots later adopted by men’s basketball. More well-known was Newcomb’s famous pottery, born of women’s suffrage. In 1884, Susan B. Anthony and Julia Ward Howe visited New Orleans and urged its women to produce handcrafted works to support themselves. Brothers William and Ellsworth Woodward, professors of art at Tulane, organized free art classes as a result. Later, they were asked to lead the art department at Sophie Newcomb, where they taught students to produce Newcomb Pottery. Made from local and regional clay with designs inspired by Louisiana nature, the pottery has been exhibited around the world. During its years of operation, Newcomb Pottery employed approximately 90 Newcomb graduates and produced 70,000 pieces of work.

A School Born of DIsaster

The relationship between Tulane University and Newcomb College had been unsettling from the beginning. Newcomb administrators, students and alumnae were constantly worried that the larger Tulane would engulf Newcomb, stamping out the smaller college’s individuality. With each institution employing a separate system of administration, costs were doubled in some areas. In 1957, Tulane administrators wrote a plan to combine some of Tulane University’s and Newcomb’s departments to eliminate some waste, alarming many graduates who feared for Newcomb’s identity. In the 1970s and 1980s, Tulane and Newcomb colleges continued to gradually combine programs. A single curriculum was adopted in 1979. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Board of Tulane voted to combine Newcomb College and Tulane College permanently and rename the undergraduate college the Newcomb-Tulane College. It also established the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College Institute, an academic center to enhance women’s education and the women’s community at the university.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

“ Each of you here has your own story to tell in the days that the water came, in the days of profound hardship that followed. Hurricane Katrina left in its wake a path of devastation, biblical in proportion. And we struggled at first to come to terms with the unimaginable reality. How can you repair a shattered home if you can’t find the pieces? Where can you go when the sea swallows the land? And that’s what makes the leadership of this university, President Cowen and the trustees and everybody else who refused to yield to despair, so inspiring.”

George Herber t Walker Bush

FORMER Presiden t to the 2 0 0 6 g ra duat i n g c l a s s o f T ul a n e

C h a p t e r F O U R

MAKE A LIST

Make a list

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Scott Cowen couldn’t sleep. It was 3 a.m. on Friday morning, September 2, 2005, less than 24 hours after Cowen and Tulane administrators had been rescued from their flooded campus. He turned on the television in his hotel room in Houston and stared at the devastation of New Orleans on CNN. He broke down in tears. Overcome with grief and uncertainty, he called his wife, Margie. “I haven’t the slightest idea how we’re going to recover from this,” he told her. “This institution’s been here 171 years, and I have no idea what to do.” Margie knew her husband well and knew exactly what he had to do. “Do what you always do when you get in a situation where you have to take control of something,” she told him. “Make a list.”

MAKE A LIST

Cowen gathered his top administrators together later that morning in his hotel suite and sent for a flip chart. They would live by that flip chart for the next month. The list, after all, was going to be a long one. The group knew that they had to reopen Tulane as soon as possible, or the university would face certain extinction. Tulane is heavily dependent on tuition, so they had to devise a way to bring their students back. If the students didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t return, then the faculty would have no one to teach, and Tulane would vanish. The team made three key decisions in the first 48 hours. First, the Tulane uptown campus would reopen in January 2006. Second, faculty and staff would remain on the payroll as long as Tulane had money to pay them. And third, Tulane would reach out to the higher education community nationwide and find temporary academic homes for its students.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

no power in the city 62

MAKE A LIST

University Communications Vice President Deborah Grant immediately went to work crafting a message from Cowen to the Tulane community. It was transmitted to an emergency Web site created by Yahoo! Tulane graduate and Yahoo! cofounder David Filo helped speed the process. Cowen said in the message that until the damage to the campuses was assessed, officials wouldn’t know when students and staff could return. “The situation is further complicated,” he wrote, “by the fact that there is no power in the city, water levels continue to rise, all city roads are blocked and the vast majority of our workforce had to leave the parish as part of the mandatory evacuation order. It is unclear at this time when people will be allowed to return to the city. We are determined to move forward as quickly as possible and make Tulane University an even stronger and healthier

We have been in New Orleans for 171 years and we look forward to another century in this great city.” institution.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Cowen knew that to make good on that promise, his team would have to be proactive. They couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait for help from insurance companies or the federal government. They would have to create their own plan independently and act on it without outside help. Senior Vice President for External Affairs Yvette Jones realized while she was still in Jackson watching over the evacuated Tulane students that the university would need access to money. All

of Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tuition checks were sitting in bags under three feet of water on the campus and New Orleans banks were not operational. Jones resorted to a clever

trade. The husband of a former president of the alumni association worked for a nationally owned bank and was in need of helicopters to airlift the bank staff out of the city. Jones loaned them helicopters from the Tulane hospital in exchange for a new bank account. In a matter of days, she had $10 million for payroll.

MAKE A LIST

Financially, the team was in the dark. With no access to computer records of any kind, Tulane administrators didn’t even know how much money they had in the bank. They kept a single checkbook with only three people authorized to write checks. At first, they used a line of credit to meet payroll and fixed costs such as debt service. Then Tulane borrowed $150 million from Deutsche Bank to use as bridge financing until money from insurance and the Federal Emergency Management Agency became available. Cowen set up a command center in his hotel suite where Tulane administrators would converge at seven every morning. Each staff member had a spot. Chief of Staff Anne Baños staked out a place underneath the dining room table; Yvette Jones had a chair. Cowen would stand at the flip chart and go over the previous day’s “wins”—what had been accomplished successfully. Then the group would outline the next steps. The

mantra was: Don’t tell me what you can’t do. Just tell me what you can do.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

DryIng Out Sylvester Johnson, associate vice president of facilities, could appreciate the irony in his situation. His home had been heavily damaged by the hurricane and its aftermath. Most of his second home, Tulane, was under water. The first problem would take time to sort out. The second problem became Johnson’s priority. Scott Cowen had made it clear to Johnson that his staff had three months to make the university safe and habitable. Johnson thought of the classic movie line from The Wizard of Oz: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” Johnson promised Cowen the university would be ready, even if the facilities staff had to pull a few strings behind the scenes. Before the Tulane team led by Yvette Jones left Jackson, they had contracted with Belfor, the world’s largest disaster restoration company, to clean up the campus. About a week and a half after Katrina hit, Johnson arrived on the Tulane campus with a police escort to survey the destruction. Eighty percent of the campus was under water. Millions of gallons of water had invaded the buildings, and where it receded, it left behind a noxious mold. It crept up the walls in the soaking buildings, flourishing in the 90˚ weather. The recovery team cleaned Gibson Hall and provided generator power. It would become the home base for National Guard troops who would guard the campus during the cleanup.

MAKE A LIST

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Belfor, sometimes 800 strong on campus, turned its attention first to the buildings containing irreplaceable documents such as the Amistad Research Center and the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library.

Huge yellow hoses snaked their way into the buildings, pumping cold, dry air through the hallways and upper floors to retard the growing mold while restoration experts retrieved priceless documents and froze them to stop any further damage. Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own facilities staff had the difficult task of removing more than 600 cubic yards of tree debris from the uptown campus. The irrigation system suffered major damage, as did the sidewalksâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; cracked and broken from uprooted trees. A new key code system had to be put in place for the entire university.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Of all those arduous jobs, perhaps none was more onerous than removing refrigerators and freezers across campus. The hurricane had struck just as a new semester was beginning, and the staff learned quickly that rather than opening the refrigeration devices, it was better to duct-tape them shut and haul them off with their steaming, rotting contents sealed safely inside. Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sports facilities had also been badly damaged. Playing and practice fields had been covered with water for weeks. Five feet of water had invaded the athletics building, destroying all the schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s uniforms and equipment.

MAKE A LIST

Tulane also hired an independent third company not associated with the university or Belfor to develop a rigorous protocol for mold remediation and testing indoor air quality. Technical Environmental Services, Inc. wrote a set of guidelines so stringent that once the work was completed, Tulane could confidently assure faculty, staff and students that the campus had never been safer or more environmentally sound. Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Health Sciences Center in downtown New Orleans had been completely underwater after the storm. But there was a silver lining to that dark cloud. Before Katrina, Tulane officials had been studying how to make the downtown campus more energy efficient. The repairs allowed the university to install more environmentally friendly systems that will save Tulane more than $1 million a year.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

While many of the student residence halls were spared major water damage because of their height, students living in off-campus housing were not so lucky. Most students left New Orleans before the storm believing they would be back in a few days. They returned months later to mattresses green with mold, disintegrating furniture and ruined family photographs. It would turn out that the physical restoration of Tulane would be one of the easier tasks, but one of the most costly. At one point, Tulane was spending $1 million a day removing the water, repairing the damage and assuring that environmental controls were followed strictly. It would cost more than $200 million to put the campus back together. In the end, losses from damaged contents and research and library assets would bring the loss of property to more than $400 million.

MAKE A LIST

The Tulane facilities staff worked 12-hour days, seven days a week and accomplished three yearsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; worth of work in less than five months.

While the rest of New Orleans languished due to a lack of organization and authority, Tulane revived its historic uptown campus, a once-again tranquil island in a sea of devastation.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

T h e Ne w N o m a d s Jen Linder had come to Tulane for preseason training as a freshman volleyball player from Austin, Texas, just weeks before Katrina devastated New Orleans. Now she sat in a classroom at Texas A&M, wondering if sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d made a good decision to attend a school in a state prone to hurricanes. Linder found her way to Texas A&M in College Station as part of the athletics departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s relocation, but thousands of other students were scattered across the country with no immediate way to commu-

Tulane maintained its emergency Web site and posted information as it became available, but many students kept in touch with blogs, waiting to hear what the school intended to do about their education. nicate with Tulane officials.

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Administrators were obviously concerned about retaining their students, the lifeblood of the university. Student-written blogs at the time reflected an incredible loyalty to the school. Senior Brett Hyman started one entry on his blog with a plea to his fellow students: “Tulane needs us. If too many of us transfer, they’ll lose tons of money and it will bring them down significantly. If anything, we could do a little good in life. We can help recruit a class next year, or we can just hang tight until we get more news on relief efforts. If you must go, then

But those of you who stay you won’t be staying just for yourselves, you’ll be doing Tulane a great favor.” you must go.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Less than a week after the hurricane struck, Tulane students had their answer in a stunning display of comradeship. A coalition of nine associations of higher education issued a statement with procedures on how Tulane students and others from Gulf Coast institutions of higher learning could enroll at colleges and universities across the nation for the fall semester. The associations urged institutions to admit students on a visiting basis so that they could still be counted as being enrolled at their home schools. The host institutions would waive tuition if students had already paid their current university. If students had not paid tuition yet, the host school was to charge the home schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rate and then remit that amount to the home school.

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Undergraduate and graduate schools across the nation opened their doors to Tulane students. While the transitions were jarring, most students came to feel profound gratitude for the outpouring of generosity in places some students

More than 500 colleges and universities opened their doors to Tulane students.

never would have envisioned themselves.

Architecture student Emilie Taylor, a Louisiana native, found herself in Tempe, Arizona. Tulane School of Architecture Associate Dean Ila Berman chose Arizona to relocate some of the students because she thought the mountainous and definitely dry climate would be therapeutic. An Arizona State University professor offered Taylor and a friend a room at no cost and found them donated furniture. Arizona State offered the students a dedicated workspace to begin a test pilot for a program called URBANbuild that would begin recovery in New Orleans.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

After finishing her duties as a Tulane Emergency Medical Services ambulance driver, Amelia Decker made her way to Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. While she, too, was welcomed warmly into university life, she was disturbed at how little those far away from New Orleans understood of the devastation and resulting lawlessness. One of Decker’s professors asked her to speak at a forum about being a disaster responder. She

was shocked when a faculty member criticized the fact that emergency medical crews in New Orleans were armed. Didn’t he know, she wondered to herself, that rescuers were being shot? President Cowen sent weekly letters via the Internet to the students, detailing the progress of Tulane’s restoration. Decker took great comfort in those letters. She had a countdown calendar in which she crossed off the days, anticipating her return to her home university.

was worth figh

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Tulane made ongoing communication with its students a priority. Cowen led live weekly chats on the Web. A month after Tulane closed, Cowen, Grant and others returned to the campus and videotaped a walking tour. Cowen also visited some of the campuses where his students were temporarily housed.

Tulane’s constant campaign to remain in touch with its students worked. When the school reopened in January, 87 percent of full-time undergraduates returned. Eighty percent of its freshmen—only on campus a few days before the evacuation—came back.

The homecoming was emblematic of the loyalty of students, faculty and staff members, and it showed that Tulane was worth fighting for.

hting for

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

T u l a n e ’ s Pu b l I c F a ce With 30 administrators toiling in Houston to put the university back together and 13,000 students scattered across the country and beyond, it fell to a small group of highly toned students to keep the image of Tulane in front of the nation—its student-athletes.

Athletics Director Rick Dickson had planned for a two- to three-day evacuation to Jackson State and had told the 140 student-athletes who were leaving Tulane that Saturday to just bring a few days’ worth of gear and toiletries. It

soon became clear that their season at home had vanished beneath the surging floodwaters of Katrina.

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Dickson put on his logistical hat and determined which colleges had the facilities to accept his student-athletes while still meeting Tulane’s academic requirements. The National Collegiate Athletic Association offered to allow Tulane’s student-athletes to compete without taking classes for the semester, but Dickson gently but firmly declined. His studentathletes were not going to become “pseudo-pros.” The 12 Tulane teams would be spread out over four different campuses. The women’s volleyball, women’s soccer, women’s swimming and diving, men’s and women’s tennis and men’s basketball teams moved to the Texas A&M campus in College Station. The football team practiced and attended classes at Louisiana Tech in Ruston, as did part of the women’s track and field squad. The baseball team and women’s basketball team took refuge at Texas Tech in Lubbock. Both the men’s and women’s golf teams relocated to Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Dickson knew the first issue would not be athletic but emotional, and he arranged for psychological counseling. Many of the student-athletes were from the Gulf Coast and had yet to get in touch with loved ones. Others already knew they had lost their homes and possessions to the flooding.

But the student-athletes also knew they were now the face of Tulane, the only functioning part of the university. For Jen Linder, the freshmen volleyball player, taking residence at Texas A&M was a jolt. She and her teammates went from a student population of 8,000 to a campus of 35,000. Merely finding the way to class and practice facilities was an obstacle. Some teams had access to their regular uniforms; others did not. The football team played the entire season—11 games in 11 different cities—in their away uniforms. Dickson bought other uniforms at a sporting goods store and drove them to the teams. The volleyball team wore uniforms donated by the University of Arizona. All of the host schools were welcoming, but maintaining a competitive edge was difficult amid constantly changing schedules and a lack of facilities. The football team practiced on a dirt field in Ruston. Other teams had to work around their host schools’ schedules to compete. The record book will show losing seasons for the student-athletes of Tulane in the fall of 2005. But in the end, winning became secondary. Tulane’s sports teams knew that by merely being visible they were keeping the hope of an entire university alive. Win or lose, they were victorious just by playing.

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H u mp t y Dum p ty Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee was no stranger to adversity. As a child in New Orleans, he had worked at his family’s restaurant every day after school and all day on Saturdays and Sundays. He continued working in the restaurant while he attended law school. So when he received a phone call in the immediate days after Katrina from Tulane asking for help on a critical project, he was ready for the task. Tulane could not rebuild without the massive amounts of data trapped on the 15th floor of an office building on Poydras Street in downtown New Orleans where it was stored. The good news was that the data was well above flood-water.

The bad news was that there was no power in the building, and the entire area was under martial law. The city was under curfew and the airspace was controlled by the military. An information technology team from Tulane flew into Baton Rouge about two weeks after Katrina and met Sheriff Lee’s deputies at the Jefferson Parish line. They escorted the team to the office building, where it would have just four

Armed with 50 boxes, they repeatedly climbed the 14 floors of steps in the dark and sweltering heat to retrieve the computers that held the data that would save the school. hours to complete its own “mission impossible.”

Back in Houston, Anne Baños couldn’t get an old nursery rhyme out of her head as she contemplated the fate of Tulane:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

It was clear to BaĂąos that the situation was grave and perhaps irreconcilable. The estimates were that Tulane would lose $125 million because its semester was shut down. As she contemplated the rhyme, she wondered how Tulane could be put back together to make it something stronger and not just a cracked egg reassembled with glue. She

and everyone working in chairs, under tables and in window sills at the hotel suite realized that merely putting the school back together as it had been was not an option. What are the real assets of Tulane? What is the universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mission? What is essential to completing that mission and what is not? Those are the questions Cowen and his team began to contemplate.

What is the

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Cowen gathered a group of outside advisers from leading businesses and universities and members of the Board of Tulane University to help administrators imagine a new Tulane. He realized that he needed objectivity that wouldn’t come from within the institution. Casting a cold eye on the school’s labyrinth of programs and degrees, the outsiders helped crystallize the fact that some Tulane programs were barely paying for themselves or were subsidized by the university. Cowen realized the easy choice to cut costs was to mandate an across-the-board reduction in the budget. But he did not think that was the prudent thing to do. It would only perpetuate struggling programs while weakening successful ones.

The third week in September—just three weeks after Katrina—the Tulane team held a conference call with the board and unveiled the bare bones of the Renewal Plan, a surgical approach that would eliminate under-performing programs and focus on redefining the undergraduate experience at Tulane, one of the university’s strongest assets.

university’s mission 85

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Tulane administrators worked every day, all day and into the night, to augment the Renewal Plan. The staff moved back to New Orleans in late October and Cowen announced the plan in early December. The plan was controversial, with painful reductions that reached all the way to the medical school, the root of Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existence. But there was another problem that the university had to address before the plan could be put into effect. The

infrastructure of New Orleans was inoperable. Tulane would have to create its own self-sustaining city, or there would be no faculty and students to implement the blueprint for recovery.

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CreatIng a VIllage For Tulane to reopen, it had to provide not only educational facilities but also places for faculty and staff to live, a transportation system to move them around and services for their families such as schools and day care centers. None of that would come from the City of New Orleans. It had to be provided by Tulane. First, faculty, staff and students needed someplace to live. The university purchased a $13 million apartment building and built additional modular housing units. But when room there ran out, it resorted to an unorthodox solution. It leased a 23,000-ton Norwegian cruise liner based in Israel and docked it on the Mississippi River. The ship had berths for more than 1,000 people to live, dine, study and sleep aboard the vessel. Tulane provided a free shuttle service between the ship and its uptown and downtown campuses.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Tulane also needed a school for the children of faculty and staff members since New Orleans had announced the closure of its school system for the rest of the academic year. Lusher School was the neighborhood public school closest to Tulane. Kathy Riedlinger, its principal, had always envisioned adding a high school to the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade curriculum, but the hurricane had put a stop to any thoughts of expansion. Riedlinger happened to be shopping for clothes in Houston when she got a call from Tulane administrators who told her they wanted to charter the school and add a high school to the existing elementary and middle schools. Riedlinger didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know where her teachers were or what the physical state of the building was like. And no one knew the whereabouts of the New Orleans school board, which would have to approve the charter. Tulane promised to work out the details and provide more than $1 million if Riedlinger could have the school opened in January not only for Tulane families but those of other affected universities in New Orleans and the general population. Enticed by the opportunity to replace diminished tax dollars, the school board agreed to the charter.

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New Orleans’ other private universities—Dillard, Loyola and Xavier—had also suffered catastrophic damage from the aftermath of Katrina. Tulane joined with the three schools in a consortium to make each institution stronger. In the case of Dillard and Xavier, Tulane offered office and classroom spaces where each institution’s students could take classes from their own faculty.

Bringing students back was important to the recovery of New Orleans as a whole because with the return of students came economic benefits and an intangible advantage for the city’s reduced population—hope.

Lost i n t h e S t orm

Stanley Cohn was on a mission to find his

Riess was a professor of physics and was

friend, John Karlem Riess—better known as

also a fraternity adviser for many years. He

“Ducky”—after Katrina passed.

strongly believed that the Greek system was

A fixture on the Tulane campus for more

a great molder of men and spent hours advis-

than 70 years, Riess acquired his nickname

ing its young members. He served as university

during his youth when a friend noted, “You

marshal for 25 years, leading the procession at

know, you walk like a duck.”

each graduation ceremony. Although in failing

health by 2005, he insisted on hiring an ambu-

Cohn, Riess’ lawyer and a graduate of

lance to take him to the Louisiana Superdome

Tulane and its law school, immediately began

for commencement exercises.

to search for his friend. After following leads

Riess and his sister, Mary, lived at the home

that ended up taking him nowhere for almost

their father had built on Audubon Boulevard.

a month, Cohn found a rescue unit that had

Both frail, Ducky and Mary rode out the storm

Ducky’s name on a list. He found his friend’s

and its aftermath. Although he was bedridden,

cremated remains in the coroner’s office in

he was still optimistic when friends contacted

Shreveport, deemed a pauper without family.

him, expressing hope that his favorite restau-

He had died aboard the airplane headed to

rant, Vincent’s on St. Charles Avenue, would

Shreveport at the age of 92.

reopen soon.

Riess had always wished to be buried in his

Four days after Katrina wrought her path

academic robes. Following his wishes, Mary laid

of destruction, the military airlifted Ducky and

her brother’s ashes to rest in a coffin with his cap

Mary to the New Orleans airport. Mary had all

and gown. He is interred in the family crypt.

of her brother’s identification in her purse. Mary

Generations of Tulane graduates will carry

was flown to Baton Rouge. She thought her

part of Ducky Riess with them. His love of the

brother would join her, but he was flown instead

students he taught and mentored was uncondi-

to Shreveport, and there the trail grew cold.

tional, and his loyalty to Tulane was unwavering for three-quarters of a century.

“ This is why we honor you, truly, because you came back. You came back to this great place. There wouldn’t be a Tulane without New Orleans, and I am absolutely convinced there would not be a New Orleans without Tulane.” B r ian William s

N BC N i g ht ly N ews a nc h o r to t he 2 0 0 7 g ra duatin g c l a s s o f T u l a n e

C h a p t e r F I V E

HoMe AgaIn

Home

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

â&#x20AC;&#x153;A s I W a s Goi ng to S a y â&#x20AC;?

It was one of the best gigs Dr. Michael White

ever played. The famed New Orleans jazz clarinetist and his Liberty Brass Band struck up a joyous tune as Tulane welcomed its undergraduate students back to campus on January 17, 2006. Many parts of the city of New Orleans were virtually like ghost towns that day. More than 160,000 homes had been destroyed and 80 percent of the greater metro population had been displaced.

But the Tulane uptown campus was alive with students, anxious to be back in the city that they had adopted as their own. Once again upperclassmen helped the returning firstyear students unload boxes at the refurbished residence halls, and anxious parents said goodbye to their children for the second time in six months.

HOME AGAIN

Scott Cowen put a protective arm around one returning freshman and promised her parents that he would take good care of her, just as he had taken care of Tulane. There was still a bit of tidying up to do—weeds to remove and trees to trim—but the bulk of the university was ready.

“As I was going to say before Katrina interrupted me . . . ,” Cowen began his

“We are absolutely delighted that you are here with us finally . . . No major research university, or for that matter, any organization, has ever been confronted with the challenges we’ve faced. Yet we have recovered, we have survived and we have charted a path to the future.” address to the returning students.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

T h e R o a d t o R enewa l The path to the future was officially called the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Plan for Renewal.â&#x20AC;? In its simplest form, it reorganized Tulane into a

new, more efficient and more visionary university.

The Renewal Plan called for Tulane to focus on its undergraduate programs and add components that would not only educate and stimulate its students but would also have broad ramifications for the recovery of the Gulf Coast as a whole. The plan created a single undergraduate college with a core curriculum and new programs to challenge students to perform greater public service. All full-time faculty members would teach undergraduate classes, enriching the experience for students by having senior faculty members on the front lines of higher education. The plan also reorganized some schools in the university to create more exciting learning opportunities while gaining greater efficiencies in operation. A residential college system in which students reside and study together was accelerated by requiring that all first- and second-year students live on campus in residential communities. The Renewal Plan also created the Center for Public Service to expand service-related learning opportunities for students. Going forward, Tulane

would require students to participate in community service work to help rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The plan also put new emphasis on the School of Architecture to step outside its academic borders into the greater community of New Orleans as rebuilding began.

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

The Partnership for the Transformation of Urban Communities and the Institute for the Study of Race and Poverty would focus on the study of racebased poverty and policies to eradicate it in partnership with Dillard, Loyola and Xavier universities. The Scott S. Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives was created to foster positive change in New Orleans public schools. The School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine would expand research and hands-on experience in the areas of community health and environmental health. And the Tulane Law School would develop new courses to target the issues of urban relief, disaster rebuilding and serving an indigent population during the region’s recovery.

But the exciting new direction for Tulane also came with heartbreak. Tulane discontinued granting degrees in some programs and reduced the number of its staff and faculty. Because of the reduced population of New Orleans, the medical school had to make tough decisions about programs and faculty in order to continue its mission of teaching, research and clinical work. Eight of the university’s 16 sports were suspended temporarily. One of the most wrenching decisions the Tulane administration had to make was the establishment of a single undergraduate college. While a task force studying the possibility of combining the two liberal arts schools, Newcomb College and Tulane College, received opinions and ideas from students and alumni, the idea of ending Newcomb’s separate status as a women’s degreegranting college was shocking to some of the school’s supporters. They felt that Tulane was violating not only the spirit but the intent of Josephine Newcomb’s bequest in memory of her daughter.

nce economic reality 98

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But in a recovery plan striving to balance economic reality with academic vision, every part was equal. Newcomb College would transform into the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College Institute, funded by the same unrestricted Newcomb endowments that fueled Newcomb College. The work of implementing the Renewal Plan lay ahead, but Tulane administrators could look back with pride and satisfaction at the tremendous amount of work accomplished in just 12 weeks.

with academic vision 99

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I f Y o u B u Il d I t... Tulane and New Orleans are inextricably linked. Each one’s successes are fortified by the other’s. Before

Katrina, Tulane had been the city’s largest private employer. After Katrina, it became the city’s largest employer of any type. And while Tulane had begun to recover by the time its students returned, New Orleans was still far from whole.

Where it had previously existed in a bubble on the uptown and downtown campuses, Tulane now became a more significant partner with the city in which it shared a postage stamp of space. Nowhere was that more obvious than in the busy School of Architecture, where students were learning a hands-on lesson in imagining a better New Orleans both large and small.

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TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

In the weeks that the architecture graduate students had spent at Arizona State University, an idea that was already on the drawing board got pushed to the forefrontâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;designing excellent architecture for affordable housing. The problem, as the architecture school saw it, was that low-income housing had nothing

Now Tulane would get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put that concept to the test in the most ravaged city in the United States.

to do with aesthetics.

URBANbuild was carefully crafted to include what architecture faculty considered the essential elements for a cutting-edge program. At its heart, URBANbuild was a social experiment that had deep roots in the New Orleans community. The design of the homes that the students would build had to stand up to architectural standards anywhere, not just for affordable housing. It also had to incorporate technology that would have broad-based applications. And it had to be sustainable, both architecturally and financially, for Tulane. The university did not want to merely donate its services continuously. It wanted the program to work from an economic standpoint.

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Architecture students rarely learn home construction from the ground up, but that was the basis for URBANbuild. The students would design a home and then become their own contractors and laborers. Students started with a standard 30-foot wide and 90-foot deep New Orleans lot, the kind that in generations past had featured a â&#x20AC;&#x153;shotgunâ&#x20AC;? home (some locals put the name in context, noting that if you shoot a gun through the front door of the house the bullet could exit through the rear door without hitting anything, though scholars note that is not the origin of the name). In New Orleans, these homes were typically built on stilts because of the potential for flooding.

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TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

What the students had in mind was something much more appealing. The home still needed to be elevated, but they found a way to render the stilts invisible from the front of the house by gradually elevating the steps to the front door. The students rethought the definition of public and private spaces and

Once the design was finished, the school hired a contractor of record to oversee construction, but the students did all the work, from pouring the foundation to painting the walls.

eliminated traditional hallways.

Tulane created an alliance with Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans, Inc., which has been transforming vacant or substandard properties into sustainable homes in the city since 1976. The agency supplied the building lot and arranged for financing. The first house took 16 weeks to build and cost $109,000 to construct. A New Orleans police officer who had grown up in the neighborhood bought it for $125,000. Proud neighbors now refer to the home as â&#x20AC;&#x153;the policemanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s houseâ&#x20AC;? and believe his presence has made their neighborhood safer.

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The students designed more houses. With each new design, students added more sophisticated elements, so the exercise was always one of scholarship as well as social responsibility. On a larger scale, the School of Architecture mapped entire neighborhoodsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;block by blockâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to determine their best and highest use. Working with experts from the Netherlands, which has landscapes at a similar sea level, the students wanted to produce new lifestyles for residents in low-lying areas. One example is an urban high-rise with individual gardens built into each unit. Through their work, Tulane architecture students have become embedded in the community. As they build each home, they are also creating an atmosphere where more urban redevelopment can take place.

On a personal level, once the students graduate and begin their careers as architects, they will truly understand the nature of their craft from the ground up.

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TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

Vo l u n t e e r S p i ri t First-year students Ereeni Roulakis, Kelly Jacques and Lauren Elliott sat on the steps outside the Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life on a windy spring day with clipboards in their hands, urging students to sign a petition asking Congress to fund a civic works project similar to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal for returning New Orleans residents who could learn construction skills to rebuild their neighborhoods. The hope, the students explained to those signing the petition, is that once returning natives learn skills to rebuild, they can then translate them into a lifelong trade.

Student activism for the public good is what has drawn many students to Tulane. Under the Renewal Plan, that mission was given clarity by the Center for Public Service, which fosters civic engagement between students and community partners such as nonprofit agencies.

Ser vice-lear ning has made me a more conscientious citizen. It has made me more aware of what is going on in the city, the people who live here and what they are like. It has helped to make my Tulane exper ience a more complete exper ience, not just social or academic. It has helped me to put Tulane in the context of New Or leans, and it has been fun, too.

—Michael Mur ray (NTC, 2010), was a s tudent in Jimmy Huck’s Cultural Her it age of Latin Amer ica cour se.

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“Before ‘Sophie the Riveter ’ I was not involved in the New Or leans community outside of Tulane. Because of this class, now I have made

Service learning projects tie classroom studies to projects

the connections with

in the community so students can see theories in action. The

community leader s and

projects range from one-on-one mentoring with underprivi-

organizations that have made

leged children to creating large-scale social changes.

my college exper ience r icher,

Environmental sociology students working on behalf of the

and I got a job for

Green Project, a nonprofit organization that promotes envi-

af ter graduation!”

ronmental sustainability in New Orleans, surveyed residents in a downtown neighborhood about environmental awareness in rebuilding techniques. Another student worked with the Chartwell Center, which serves children with autism, to create a swimming program.

—Margaret Richards (NTC, 2007), was a s tudent in Rebecca Mar k’s Women Rebuilding New Or leans cour se.

Through a Newcomb College Institute course called “Sophie the Riveter”, young women received hands-on experience in rebuilding the city by learning how to gut a home, install drywall, hang doors and master other construction skills. 107

TUlANE UnIversIty: RenaIssance

“ The program provides excellent academic suppor t dur ing the inter nship. They are also extremely ef ficient dur ing the inter nship plac ement process while finding

The center’s Semester in NOLA allows students from other universities to spend a five-week internship with local organizations focusing on the rebirth of New Orleans. As students directly participate in the civic life of New

the per fect fit between an inter n’s

Orleans, the Center for Public Service fosters the retention

goals and the site’s needs.

of students who now are invested in the community in which

It’s granted me the chance to help rebuild New Or leans, gain invaluable exper ience and interact closely with the postK at r ina community—the credits earned are merely an added bonus.”

—Grace Proctor (NTC, 2007), was a psychology s tudent inter ning at Beacon of Hope. 108

To many students, the service learning projects are a way to move from simple volunteerism to becoming part of the community emotionally and spiritually. It is one of the enduring lessons of Katrina—that we truly are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. they live.

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Ne w c o mb Wo m e n The Newcomb College Institute today embodies the spirit and social activism of the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College. It is a vibrant center dedicated to enhancing the educational experience of women at the university. Its inaugural summit, Educating Women for a World in Crisis, was a groundbreaking program that featured tours of the devastated areas of New Orleans led by local women who have been at the forefront of recovery through working for legislation to reform local levee boards, organizing large cleanup efforts and rescuing pets abandoned after Katrina. But it also educated participants about the larger human rights problems faced by women around the world. The Newcomb Scholars program recognizes graduates who exhibit exceptional leadership skills and academic excellence in their field of study. The Newcomb College Institute also provides fellowships and grants for interdisciplinary research and travel by students and faculty. The Under the Oaks ceremony continues the legacy of Newcomb College by recognizing outstanding students and continuing the tradition of the Daisy Chain, in which Newcomb College students carry garlands of daisies across the campus before graduation. Ties to the Newcomb College Institute are strengthened through several programs, including the Newcomb Town Moms, local Newcomb alumnae who act as surrogate mothers and mentors for incoming female first-year students.

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Just as Tulane has been tied to New Orleans, so has Newcomb. The school began largely with day students from New Orleans. Through the years, as its student body has become more diverse, those Newcomb students have carried a part of New Orleans with them throughout the world.

The Newcomb College Institute continues to foster the unique spirit of the college while remaining the advocate for women on campus, just as Josephine Newcomb envisioned.

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E p I l o g u e

Tulane administrators view Katrina and her impact on the university in a historical context. Tulane was founded in 1834 as the Medical College of Louisiana to seek a cure for the great tragedy brought on by recurring epidemics of yellow fever. But Tulane is not defined by the disease; rather, it is defined by the renowned School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine that was the result. The same holds true for Katrina. History

will record not that Katrina defined the university, but that lasting parts of the institution were created because of the disaster. The landscape of New Orleans will change with innovative housing solu-

tions from Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s student-architects. Community service will be part of the fabric of life at Tulane. Progress will be made to close the schism between rich and poor. Public schools will reach their potential to educate. Years from now, Katrina will be a vague memoryâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;something for the history books. And the sweeping reforms at Tulane will be merely a part of everyday life on campus.

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EPILOGUE

Tulane understands, as it had never understood before, how intimately tied it is to its home city of New Orleans. Through the darkest days immediately after Katrina when the levees crumbled in the terrifying face of an unstoppable sea, both Tulane and New Orleans clung tenaciously to a thread of hope that survival was possible. Even as some of Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s administrators struggled to escape their island campus, others already were putting in place the building blocks of recovery. With bold strokes, they found resources where there were none and replaced despair with resolve. The spirit of survival extended to the thousands of students suddenly cast to the winds, unsure of when or whether they would ever return to their beloved city and school. Through generous sister institutions of higher learning, the refugees were taken in and nurtured. They clung to hope with the weekly Internet messages from Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strong-willed president, assuring them that recovery was not only possible but also imminent.

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Tulaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recovery was a testament to fierce will, uncommon faith and unflagging energy. That the university emerged as a stronger, more vital institution is the key to understanding its future. Recovery was not only the objective but the vehicle to a renewed commitment to excellence and a new vision for the future.

History will record that once upon a time in a magical city, a proud university stared at the face of death and did not blink. History will record that Tulane University led that magical city to its own recovery and renewal, both of them stronger and more essential than before.

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A D M I N I S T R A T I V E Scott S. Cowen President

Dave D. Davis Director of Institutional Research

Nicholas J. Altiero Dean, School of Science and Engineering

Angelo S. DeNisi Dean, A.B. Freeman School of Business

Anne P. Ba単os Chief of Staff and Vice President

Richard P. Dickson Director of Athletics

Paul L. Barron Chief Information Officer

Luann D. Dozier Vice President for Development

Scott D. Bernhard Interim Dean, School of Architecture

Deborah L. Grant Vice President for University Communications

George L. Bernstein Interim Dean, School of Liberal Arts

F. Doug Harrell Vice President for Finance and Controller

Michael A. Bernstein Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

Victoria D. Johnson General Counsel

and Provost

Pierre M. Buekens Dean, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine

Cynthia L. Cherrey Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students

Sharon P. Courtney Assistant Vice President of Government Affairs Collette Creppell University Architect and Director of Campus Planning

Marc A. Czapla Director of Emergency Preparedness

B O A R D

Yvette M. Jones Chief Operating Officer and

Senior Vice President for External Affairs

Ann E. Kovalchick Deputy CIO and Executive Director of Technology Services

Andrew A. Lackner Director, Tulane National Primate Research Center

Laura S. Levy Associate Senior Vice President for Research Anthony P. Lorino Senior Vice President for Operations and

C O U N C I L Deborah E. Love Vice President for Institutional Equity and

Assistant to the President for Diversity Initiatives

James M. MacLaren Dean, Newcomb-Tulane College Jacob W. Maczuga Associate Vice President of Technology Transfer and Business Development

Ronald E. Marks Dean, School of Social Work Richard A. Marksbury Dean, School of Continuing Studies and Tulane Summer School

Alan M. Miller Associate Senior Vice President for the Health Sciences

Lawrence Ponoroff Dean, School of Law Lance Query Dean of Libraries and Academic Information Resources

Earl D. Retif Vice President for Enrollment Management and University Registrar

Benjamin P. Sachs Senior Vice President and Dean, School of Medicine

Chief Financial Officer

O F

T U L A N E

M E M B E R S

Philip Greer, chair

Matthew B. Gorson

Richardson K. Powell

Martha W. Barnett

Elias S. Hanna

James J. Reiss Jr.

Darryl D. Berger

Douglas J. Hertz

Richard K. Schmidt

Carol L. Bernick

Walter S. Isaacson

Frank B. Stewart Jr.

Wilmer R. Bottoms

Christopher M. James

Alison Stone

Elizabeth S. Campbell

John E. Koerner III

Charles C. Teamer

Scott S. Cowen

James M. Lapeyre Jr.

Celia S. Weatherhead

Robert M. Devlin

Wayne J. Lee

Stephen H.Weiss

Philip J. Fagan Jr.

Elizabeth S. Nalty

Linda S. Wilson

Richard W. Freeman Jr.

Jeanne C. Olivier

E. Richard Yulman

Catherine D. Pierson